


like the sheep

by zefive



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gore, Gregg Feels, M/M, Nightmares, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, spoilers for the Sheep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 21:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10201418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zefive/pseuds/zefive
Summary: Sometimes, reality mixes in with memories, and so there's Angus, right across the median.





	

Gregg is running.

The woods are dark, and the hill is steep, but he's running anyway- he can hear them, those stupid sheep, just ahead, and he's running so fast, as quickly as his legs can go, and there's a sinking pit in his gut, a fear in his throat.

Stupid sheep. Stupid Gregg.

He trips, flails his arms- hits the ground and rolls, bruising his elbow as he flips once; the highway is loud and close by, and Gregg fights back tears, and gets right back up.

“Stop!” he hollers, stumbling the first few steps, then running once more. “You dumbass sheep, _stop_!”

He clears the woods, and the ground is flat again, and he can see the highway- can see the sheep too, woolly and _so dumb_ , and Gregg is just breathing in to yell again, when the truck blares by.

There's this sound.

Gregg's pretty sure it'll haunt him for the rest of his life, that sound; the _splat_ and the _snap_ , and the truck just going right on, squishing the sheep like it's no damn thing.

The sheep kind of- _explodes_. Like a piñata, stomachs splitting open and guts going everywhere. Blood goes everywhere too, spraying across the pavement..

Four sheep, dead, just like that.

There's sheep running back towards him, passing him in a blur, and Gregg just, lets them by- stares out at the highway as he nears the bottom; stares at the intestines and the guts and the gore, and the blood.

There's three other sheep- across the highway, and they're standing there, staring at him, and Gregg swallows what he thinks might be bile. Raises his arms.

Waves his hands.

“Angus!” he yells, and Angus is staring back at him, with this look in his eyes, and the highway is covered in sheep bits, and Gregg can't stop waving his hands.

“ _Angus!_ ” he yells, again, and then Angus is walking towards him. Back towards the highway, back towards _him_.

A truck blares.

Angus steps onto the highway.

Gregg's waving his hands.

There's the sound, again. A snap, a splat- Angus breaks open like a piñata, head twisting back, neck snapping, body slamming into the pavement; his hands splits open, blood and flesh-bits going out across the highway, the inside of him spilling everywhere, ropes of intense curling out of him like-

Gregg starts awake.

There's bile in his mouth; an after image of Angus, printed onto his retina, and Gregg _can't_ think-

“Angus!” he cries, twists so he can throw himself over his boyfriend, hands digging into his fur. “Angus!!”

Angus murmurs- a sleepy, half-thing, and Gregg's throat is all tight, wound in on itself, and _stupid_ , stupid, Gregg, why'd you open the _pen_?

“Angus!” he screams, and his voice breaks, and Angus jolts awake, then- nearly brains Gregg, but he can't really care, because Angus is _looking at him_ , is staring at him with sleep-befuddled eyes.

Gregg breathes in, shakily.

“Bug?” Angus asks, in a voice heavy with sleep, and Gregg-

Gregg thinks of Angus, of that- that image, of him sprawled across the highway like a _sheep_ , and it hurts, it hurts a lot, and he's starting to cry.

“Angus,” he says, and he sounds like a kid; like eight year old Gregg, staring up at uncle, and dumbly saying “they're dead” because what _else_ do you say?

Angus' eyebrows furrow together. He looks worried, kind of concerned, and Gregg swallows, curls his fingers into Angus' fur.

“You-” he doesn't know what to say. There's a lot of it, all crammed up inside his head, pushing and pulling at each other, and all he can think of is:

He doesn't deserve Angus.

He swallows again, breathes in, out; it shakes, and he's shaking, and crying, and Angus is looking at him like he's bleeding out, and maybe he is, maybe _he is_. It feels like he is.

“You have to leave me,” he blurts out, and Angus face goes- well, it goes _blank_ , except that's not the right emotion, that's not- it's like it locks down, and Gregg laughs, because he's panicking, or something, and he doesn't know how to do this.

“You gotta- you gotta break up with me, cap'n.”

He leans in closer, and his hands are shaking a lot; he stares at his knuckles, at the way his hand _shakes shakes shakes_ , and just, won't stop.

“Gregg?”

There's warm, big, comforting hands curling around his wrists, and Gregg shakes his head rapidly- thinks of Angus, splayed open, dead like the sheep, and-

“You- you deserve better than me, I'm gonna k- _kill_ you, get you killed, get you all-” he stutters, stops. Breathes, because it's starting to hurt, in his lungs and in his chest.

“Ripped open and split open, and dead like the sheep, Angus, you're gonna be like them, because I'm a fuck up, I'm _trash_ , I'm stupid and dumb and useless and-”

Angus hushes him. Wraps his arms around him and drags him in close, and Gregg sobs, except this is important, so he bites down the tears, and tries to continue.

“You gotta leave me, Angus, you _gotta_ , you can't-”

“Gregg.”

Angus' voice is solid. Like rock, like steel, like all those solid things.

Gregg presses his face into the fur, smears tears and snot all over him. He's clutching at Angus so hard it probably hurts.

“Just breathe, bug. Breathe.”

He does. He breathes, in and out, shaking and crying and he can't lose that image. That image of Angus dead and split open, and all twisted, like the sheep.

“What's going on?” Angus asks, when Gregg isn't hyperventilating anymore; when he's breathing alright, and he's not sobbing, when he's only kind of crying.

“I'm-” bad. Trash, worthless, _stupid_ , like those sheep, except he's not the sheep, he's the truck, he's the dumb kid who opened the pen, _just because_ , and Gregg's breath twists all up in his throat, like a big clump closing off his air supply.

“Shhhh,” goes Angus, and rubs at his back, and Gregg sniffs- coughs, and rasps in more air.

“I'm like, poison,” he says, when the clump isn't blocking him off anymore. “I'm gonna fuck up, and I'm gonna fuck _you_ up, and I'm gonna like, let you down, or something, and you'll come back for me, because you're good and amazing, and then you'll just- you'll _die_ , Angus, like the sheep, and you don't- you deserve better than me!”

He's staring at Angus chest, and not his face, and he's breathing hard, and he thinks- Angus' going to break up with him now. He's going to realise that Gregg is right- that he's worthless and stupid and dumb, and just a fuck up, and Angus is going to get up, or maybe Gregg will get up, and Gregg will go out and live on the street, or jump off a roof, or-

“Gregg.”

Angus.

Speaking in a tone Gregg can't place, even though he knows what it is, and there's big hands, cupping his head and making him look up, and Angus is crying, just a bit, all silent and quiet.

“You're amazing.”

It's said very matter of factly.

Like Angus is saying the sky is blue, or the grass is green, and Gregg stares at him- stares at him, and doesn't quite function, because Angus is supposed to be leaving him, now, except he isn't.

Angus smiles.

It's a painful smile, like he's really sad, and Gregg reaches up- presses his palm to Angus' cheek, and wants to ask a lot of things.

“I love you, Gregg. I love you _a lot_ , and I think maybe I'm the one who doesn't deserve you.”

Gregg shakes his head.

“That's not true,” he says, because it _isn't_. “Even Bea thinks you're too good for me.”

Angus huffs. He's still smiling, is still looking kind of sad, and his face is all soft. Soft and sad and beautiful.

“Well, Bea's wrong. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Gregg. Without you, I wouldn't exist.”

Gregg winces. The mere thought of it- of Angus not being _here_ \- makes his chest hurt, makes his throat go tight and his eyes wet, and a world without Angus in it, isn't a world worth a damn thing.

“I love you,” Angus repeats, and Gregg looks back at him. “And nothing is going to make me leave you.”

 _You should_ , Gregg thinks, because he really is a fuck up, but.

But.

“Can we go back to sleep?” he asks, because he's tired, because words are sticking in his throat, because Angus is wrong, and Gregg is right, but right now, he just- can't.

Angus' face softens; it's still sad, but it's a tender sort of sad, like Angus loves him so much it's a sad thing.

“Okay,” Angus says, and presses a kiss to his forehead. “But we're going to talk about this tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Gregg says, and pulls himself closer to Angus, presses his cheek against his collarbone. “Sorry I got snot on you.”

Angus laughs. It's a rumble in his chest, and Gregg smiles, because he loves Angus, and maybe it'd be okay to be selfish, just for now. Just until they move, just until Angus can't go back for him.

He closes his eyes.

And printed across his retina, is the image of Angus, broken and dead and split open.

 

**Author's Note:**

> more gratuitous Gregg angst, because that's all i can write now, apparently??  
>  _how do you end stuff tho_
> 
> (like, i'm even planning out a multi-part Gregg angst fic. why this. save this poor boy)


End file.
